In meeting customer requirements and market demand, fiber laser systems are often characterized by a set of output characteristics variable from system to system, including output power and beam quality. For example, in some laser applications, perfect, diffraction-limited (or close to perfect) beam quality is necessary while in others a reduced beam quality is sufficient (or may even be preferred) to meet process requirements. In addition, various steps of the laser process supply chain can benefit from having predictable beam quality. Also, in designing fiber laser systems, it can be desirable to have sets of components that can be common across platforms and architectures. While methods for maximizing laser beam quality have received much attention, low cost methods of manufacturing laser systems with selectable beam quality are lacking. Therefore, a need remains for solutions to overcome these drawbacks.